


get ahead of it

by elegantstupidity



Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: Comedians, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Gen, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22238632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantstupidity/pseuds/elegantstupidity
Summary: Midge might play nice with others, might be willing to play second fiddle to someone else, but fuck that. Susie hadn’t worked her ass off, hadn’t burned nearly every professional bridge she had for a second fiddle.
Relationships: Lenny Bruce & Miriam "Midge" Maisel & Susie Myerson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	get ahead of it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miss_M](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/gifts).



Even with one eye and, more importantly, both ears on the stage, Susie was doing her best to keep herself busy. Well, _look_ busy. All she'd managed to come up with was less than methodically polishing the Gaslight's stock of mismatched and hopelessly stained coffee cups. If she’d been more interested in cleaning than monitoring the impromptu workshop happening just a few feet away, Susie would’ve found herself shit outta luck; as far as she knew, the last time any of the rags behind the bar had actually been clean themselves, La Guardia'd been in office.

She looked down at the cup in her hand. Oof. Maybe she really should stop...

But, it wasn't as if there was much else she could do. The club was closed, the fucking samovar had scalded her when she tried to give it a polish, there was no way she was touching the bathrooms, and Midge didn't need any managing at the moment. 

Susie, in fact, doubted Midge _could_ be managed at the moment, not when she was deep under the influence of the stage, new material, and a rapt audience. 

"All right," Miriam said, scribbling out a line in her ridiculous pink diary and no doubt already thinking about seven steps ahead, “but what if I set it up with the bit about my mother digging through my dresser to find the underwear she thought I stole?”

Giving the mug in her hand an extra rough scrub, Susie kept her mouth firmly closed. Because, as it happened, it wasn’t Susie’s thoughts she was looking for.

(Though, to be fair, she had certainly shared them just three days ago when they’d picked through the new jokes over the phone.) 

Lenny Bruce blew out a long stream of smoke, pondering the question.

“That’s better,” he finally decided, echoing Susie’s own sentiments. If she weren't so worried—not that she was worried, precisely, about Midge looking for outside opinions, even from arguably the greatest comedic talent since Jack Benny—she probably would've been over the goddamn moon. As it was, she went right on polishing. “But isn’t the punchline, well, too obvious?”

Miriam’s brow furrowed in a way she couldn’t be aware of, not with the specter of wrinkles on the horizon and a lifetime with Rose Weissman in her ear. Then again, maybe, possibly, she’d just relaxed her strenuous personal grooming standards for the day. Even thinking it felt wrong, but Susie’s eyes didn’t exactly lie; this was about as unglamorous as Midge Maisel got. In cropped pants that showed off ankles that hadn’t gained an inch since she was a debutante—“Jesus, Susie, I didn’t _debut_.”—and a sweater that might actually have been from last season, Susie's girl looked downright comfortable.

Showing no sign that he minded, Lenny leaned casually against the upright at the back of the stage, cigarette smoke dissipating around him. It did nothing to obscure the intensity of his gaze on Midge, who either hadn’t or was pretending very hard not to notice. Aside from tweaking his rumpled collar—though Susie suspected that Lenny had picked out his least wrinkled suit before making this trip—with a disapproving frown when he first ambled in the door, Miriam at least had been all business.

With thoughts of fashion pushed to the back of her mind (if Susie knew her client—and she did; she _knew_ Miriam the way she knew an empty subway car at rush hour wasn’t a chance to snag a seat the way she knew comedy itself—she knew it was impossible to completely banish matters of wardrobe from consideration), Midge just sighed and scribbled down something else. Absently, reluctantly, she replied, “Yeah, that’s what I—“

Susie cleared her throat.

“—and Susie thought.”

The corner of Lenny’s mouth tipped up, and he glanced up to offer Susie a dip of the chin in acknowledgment. And, okay, there she was, approaching the fucking moon. Still, Susie frowned back at him. Lenny Bruce might somehow have started making regular appearances in her life, hell she might actually but there was no cause to lose her cool. He shook his head, still grinning, but turned back to Midge offered no comment other than, “All right, then let’s get back to the bit about your sister-in-law and the rabbi…”

Without missing a beat, Midge launched straight into the saga of Astrid’s escalatingly desperate overtures when she was first trying to win over the Weissman’s rabbi.

Susie listened with half an ear, though it wasn’t as if her attention was riveted on the chipped stack of saucers at hand, either. Half an ear would’ve been more than enough to pick up on the rhythm and patter of Midge’s rendition. It was not, however, enough when she accounted for the addition of a second voice.

Soon, Lenny was breaking into Midge’s breathless buildups, inserting something laconic but lurkingly sharp into her narratives as deftly as though it had been written that way. And then, because no one could accuse Miriam Maisel of lacking in comedic instincts, she was intentionally leaving him space, adapting to his delivery, showing him how to fit into hers.

Quickly, it became clear that this wasn’t just Miriam testing out new material for another pro, honing her act with a comedian’s ear on call. Not if the slow, delighted grin curling across Midge’s mouth was any indicator.

Susie stopped pretending not to listen.

It was natural, if a little rough. Funny as hell too. With a little work, it could be, if not better than Miriam on her own, just different and still so goddamn good.

And it all made Susie deeply uneasy.

Because this, exactly this, was what worried her.

This wasn’t like when Miriam temporarily lost her mind and started playing parties like they were real gigs and entertaining ambitions of being half of a cut-rate Nichols and May and taking meetings with other goddamn agents. T

No, it wasn’t really any surprise that Midge could play nice with others—that she might even be willing to play second fiddle to someone else—but fuck that. Susie hadn’t worked her ass off, hadn’t burned every professional bridge she had for a second fiddle.

Anyway, Miriam Maisel was entirely too good for that bullshit.

And Lenny… Well, he was Lenny fucking Bruce. It didn’t matter how gracious he was about sharing the stage, apparently content to be the setup man to Midge’s perfect punchlines. Most people were going to see him with a microphone in his hand and immediately forget about the broad standing three feet away.

No matter how fucking phenomenal she was.

Because if Lenny was on fire, then Miriam was a goddamn inferno.

She could burn down the motherfucking Carnegie with her half-polished jokes and a sweater she might’ve worn more than twice. And she deserved to do it on her own two feet. And so help her God, Susie was gonna make sure—

Susie put the cup in her hands down before she got too carried away.

The clink of its bottom against the bar cut into the sudden silence inside the club.

Midge sucked in a deep breath, like she’d just finished one of her calisthenics classes. Lenny, who’d come centerstage at some point, didn’t look quite so winded, but he was standing straighter, leaning into Miriam’s glow, like he knew that lightning had just struck.

There was something about the way he was looking at Miriam, like he’d consider straightening up and flying right if she would only tell him to, that set Susie even more on edge. And not only because it was a look that she was so familiar with herself.

But then Midge was looking up from her notebook, peering through the gloom of the Gaslight—and that was with the house lights up; Jesus, she really needed to get Jacky to do his job around here—to catch her eye. She grinned, going bright as the marquees on Broadway, where her name was gonna be someday. 

“So, Susie,” Miriam eagerly prompted. “What’d you think?”

And it was then that Susie's worst fears sank back into the pit of her stomach. Wherever this went, whether it stayed an impromptu bit that never had a wider audience or they decided to give Abbott and Costello a run for their money, Susie would be right there with them. Miriam wasn't leaving her behind. Whatever they accomplished, and Susie just knew that the fucking moon was the limit for Mrs. Maisel, they'd do it together.

If Lenny Bruce happened to tag along for the ride, well, then she guessed that there was worse company. 

"I think," she replied, finally letting a tiny, hopeful grin play over her face, "that whatever the fuck that was only counts if you can do it again."

Midge laughed, head thrown back in utter delight. Lenny even grinned, gesturing for Midge to lead the way. Immediately, she dove back in, already finding little tweaks and shifts to elevate the whole thing.

Yeah, Susie thought as she came out from behind the bar to observe more closely, she could definitely work with this.


End file.
